Friday, 11 August 2017

I'm a stranger here myself

There's a new S7 episode out tomorrow – as in new for all of us. I'm really looking forward to everyone being able to watch on the same day again, and I might even go so far as to revive Text Review Roundup next week. That's not a promise, as it depends on how many text-based reviewers are still in the game after the mess of the last few months' scheduling. (I'll still review it!)

To the main point of this post. I've been active in this fandom for more than five years now, and I'm comfortable with my place in it. I've been writing here since late 2012. Yet I still feel something of an outsider, and that goes especially for the fanfic/writing part of the game. You might think that odd, given how much time I spend on it these days, but it's very much the case.

Possibly part of this is that a lot of you guys are Americans who get to socialise together at the large conventions you have over there – cons which sometimes have multiple writing-based events. I can count the people I've met who have strong name recognition within the international ponyfic community on the fingers of one hand – and the most famous one of those (Blueshift) isn't really active any more.

My relatively late and low-key entry into being an active Fimfictioner might be a factor, too. I spent much of 2013 semi-absent from Fimf after a major personal upset – it's no accident that I didn't start Ponyfic Roundup until 2014. That also meant that in 2013 I barely even looked at EqD, didn't really participate in the (then) still very active writers' training grounds and the like, etc.

Possibly another aspect is that so many people around the ponyfic world seem terrifyingly clever. I've mentioned Bad Horse's scary blogs before, and the equally scary comments thereon, but that's far from being the only example. I read a blog in which someone lightly references the Riemann hypothesis or the Christianisation of Lithuania or whatever, and I can feel my brain heating up.

Please don't get the idea I worry about this. I'm more than comfortable with keeping on in my own small way, writing occasionally, going to smaller-scale social events and cons, and shoving out these rambly blogs. Largely for health reasons, I'm unlikely to be able to travel thousands of miles for a con anyway, and I have zero interest in loud, alcohol-or-other-drug-of-choice-fuelled parties.

I do wonder, though, whether all this helps to explain why I choose the stories I do to review. Right from the start, I've made a conscious effort to read plenty of fics thataren't among the acknowledged classics, or even at all well known. I think that, as something of an outsider here myself, I find myself sympathetic to other outsiders and drawn to give time to what they've produced.

7 comments:

In a way, I think most of us feel like outsiders. We are already on the nerdy end of the social spectrum, and it's easy to feel like while you're part of this community, you're still not PART of it. I've written what I believe to be a selection of primarily well-regarded stories and I'm on a conversational basis with a lot of the big names here in the pony fic world, and I still feel like a non-entity a lot of the time. I think it's just part of the human condition. For most of us, where we stand doesn't look like the center.

I think it's easy to feel that way. The vast, vast majority of fans of My Little Pony are in no way horse-famous, and probably aren't even a part of Brony social circles in their area. Most Bronies have probably never been to a meet up. (Most? Dunno, but there'll be an awful lot who haven't.)

I feel like an outsider in the fandom myself a lot of the time, but I think the secret is that there is no secret inner circle to penetrate.

Gosh, I have no desire to be Horse Famous! The tiny slice of that experience I had at CustardCon last October was more than weird enough for me.

But you're right: there must be any number of fans of MLP who do no more than watch the show and maybe read EqD once in a while, and who may barely even know Fimfiction exists. It's probably partly the usual situation that because I actively go looking for fandom stuff, I find it. :P

That's surprising, because I've always considered you to be one of the top reviewers in the fandom! I think that viewing things primarily through the oddly limiting and distorted lense of the internet can make some amazing connections, but also some not-quite-true images of the dynamics of this weird little fandom.

That's very kind, though I'd point out that there aren't very many regular fic reviewers in the fandom anyway. :P I agree with your internet point, though, with the caveat that I really do think not being in North America makes a difference.